to be found without fail at dinner and at supper
time. It was one of those genial bits of old Rome which survived till a
few years ago, and was more deeply regretted than many better things
when it disappeared.

Behind the Church of Saint Eustace runs a narrow street straight up from
the Square of the Pantheon to the Via della Dogana Vecchia. It used to
be chiefly occupied at the lower end by poulterers' shops, but towards
its upper extremity--for the land rises a little--it has always had a
peculiarly dismal and gloomy look. It bears a name about which are
associated some of the darkest deeds in Rome's darkest age; it is called
the Via de' Crescenzi, the street and the abode of that great and evil
house which filled the end of the tenth century with its bloody deeds.

There is no more unfathomable mystery in the history of mediaeval Rome
than the origin and power of Theodora, whose name first appears in the
year 914, as Lady Senatress and absolute mistress of the city. The
chronicler Luitprand, who is almost the only authority for this period,
heaps abuse upon Theodora and her eldest daughter, hints that they were
of low origin, and brands them with a disgrace more foul than their
crimes. No one can read their history and believe that they were
anything but patrician women, of execrable character but of high
descent. From Theodora, in little more than a hundred years, descended
five Popes and a line of sovereign Counts, ending in Peter, the first
ancestor of the Colonna who took the name; and, from her also, by the
marriage of her second daughter, called Theodora like herself, the
Crescenzi traced their descent. Yet no historian can say who that first
Theodora was, nor whence she came, nor how she rose to power, nor can
any one name the father of her children. Her terrible eldest child,
Marozia, married three sovereigns, the Lord of Tusculum, the Lord of
Tuscany, and at last Hugh, King of Burgundy, and left a history that is
an evil dream of terror and bloodshed. But the story of those fearful
women belongs to their stronghold, the great castle of Sant' Angelo. To
the Region of Saint Eustace belongs the history of Crescenzio, consul,
tribune and despot of Rome. In the street that bears the name of his
family, the huge walls of Severus Alexander's bath afforded the
materials for a fortress, and there Crescenzio dwelt when his kinswoman
Marozia held Hadrian's tomb, and after she was dead. Those were the
times when the